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Rocketspark or WordPress for my accountancy firm website?

Dec 9, 2016

One of the questions we’re often asked by accountants is, what is the difference between Rocketspark and WordPress? Is there a difference? Does it matter which one I use to build my site – now or in the future?

For most accountancy firms, WordPress is the default platform on which custom sites are built. (Actually, for most businesses building a solid custom website, WordPress is the go-to platform.)

But Rocketspark is another type of platform we’ve mentioned before, and some of our clients have chosen to use that instead of WordPress. Here are a few examples:

So what’s the difference? Which one do you need?

First, it’s important to know that both are excellent website platforms and we would have no hesitation recommending you to use one or the other.

(Note – there are other DIY website builders such as Weebly, Square Space, Wix, etc., but having worked with all of these, the Profitable Firm team has given Rocketspark rave reviews over all the others for its capabilities and ease of use.)

Both platforms will do just about anything you need. But the primary difference is that one has been built on a DIY basis, and the other has not.

Here are key points to consider when deciding which website platform will suit your accountancy firm best. And of course, if you’re not sure, just ask.

Use Rocketspark as your website platform if….

Self-maintained: You want a simple, clean, easy-to-update site that you maintain yourself, or someone in the firm maintains. The person doing the maintenance has little to no website skill or experience, and changes will not be major.

No complex integrations: You may need something simple like a Mailchimp form embed or a social media feed, but you’re not needing custom CRM integrations or heavy code development.

Self-build: You or someone in the firm is going to build the site on your own. You don’t have to learn HTML or CSS, you can drag and drop sections and use their easy templates. We’ve seen people build a site in a day, or less.

Simple website: For a new firm, new business idea, or you’re simply wanting something to give you a web presence that doesn’t look like it was built in 1997.

Keeping costs low: The DIY sites with Rocketspark are a mere £16/month. Pocket change. Granted, you’ll need to invest the time to build it, edit it, write the content, source imagery, etc., but this is a great fit for those who have more time than cash.

Event or one-off site: Brilliant for an event website, a new element of the business such as a bookkeeping arm or separate consultancy. This is particularly true if the one-off site has different branding than your own.

Starting point: If you build the whole site on Rocketspark and in future wanted to have a WordPress site, it is not a difficult task to transfer it over to that platform. We have a website transfer option to help you with this.

Use WordPress as your website platform if….

Custom integrations: You know that you want to have a higher-level site with custom integration capability such as Mailchimp or a CRM system, Gravity Forms, more complex social sharing, etc.

Control: You want more control over the specific template and layouts and design options.

Site maintained externally: You (or someone in the firm) may do a few small site changes or post a blog now and then, but in the main your website maintenance will be done by an outsourced supplier or an external support of some kind. (You could consider a service such as WP Curve or WP Radius for this – or of course we at Profitable Firm can include it in a monthly outsourced package including content & design work.)

Willing to invest heavily in your site: You’ve got at least £8k – £15k budgeted to build a powerful, customised, unique-to-you website exclusively for your firm. If so, there isn’t much WordPress can’t do for you. We use it for all our high level sites. Read on.

Fully customised site: You want a custom created site that is unique to your firm, with all the integrations and capabilities right from the start. We’ve built a few sites like this by custom-creating a WordPress template (instead of simply customising an existing template). The difference is powerful and there is literally nothing you can’t do when your site is built in this way.

When it comes to security, WordPress can have some challenges as it’s such a worldwide, popular platform – but then it also has security plugins and protections that are widely available, so I wouldn’t say either would be better or worse in that regard. Rocketspark might even give you a bit more confidence as it’s a custom platform and not used quite as widely on a global basis yet.

Rocketspark themselves have written an excellent post on the differences between the two platforms – and coming from their perspective, it’s remarkably objective.

I trust this is helpful as you consider your options, but as always if you have questions about your particular situation, drop me a line anytime and I’ll let you know what I think.